Safe
by This Is Melodrama
Summary: Nothing was safe, nothing in the world was safe, especially him, and the thoughts that plagued his mind in the stillness of the night were only a severe reminder of that.


**Disclaimer: S.E. Hinton own The Outsiders.**

* * *

Something pulsates beneath the surface, pulling him down and suffocating him until he can no longer breathe on his own. He feels sick, lost, and unsure of what caused him to become this way.

Deep down, he knows, but he refuses to remember. He can't. He won't let himself, because if he does, he'll be forced to become what he doesn't want to, he'll be sucked back down into the deepest recesses of his mind, where everything and nothing can get him at once.

He hears his older brother's snores coming from his room, and he closes his eyes, wishing for one second that he could sleep peacefully. He almost snorts thinking that—what is peace? He hasn't felt an ounce of it since he got his draft letter over two years ago.

A shiver creeps up his spine as he recalls that day, Darry attempting to find a way for him to fail his physical, all the secrets they had kept from Ponyboy, all the lies and the whispers that the youngest member of the family had come to learn in only a short period of time . . .

Soda blamed himself that day, blamed himself for trying to protect his younger brother. What Ponyboy didn't know was how much Soda looked up to him, and now, now he was just angry. Sometimes, that anger found him in the middle of the night, caused him to sit up drenched in sweat, skin glistening in the darkness as shallow breaths fell from his lips.

Every day, he looked at Ponyboy, watched him, _remembered._ The day he'd come home, his brothers looked so relieved, so happy, so joyful at seeing him. But Soda was anything but. They didn't know what had happened to him out there, didn't know the things that he'd seen, the things he had endured, the things he'd done that would haunt him for the rest of his life, and they would _never_ understand.

He had crawled into bed beside his younger brother that same night, waking up nearly two hours later with his hands two inches from the younger boy's neck, before realizing what he was about to do—what he _could_ have done had he not snapped out of it.

Since then, he had moved back into his old room without any explanation. It was still the same—faded white walls, clothes and other assorted items littering the floor—almost as if Darry had never touched it, almost as if he had never set foot in there, almost as if he and Ponyboy simply expected him to—

Soda cringed in the darkness, brown eyes shifting toward the window. It was pitch black outside; it reminded him of those nights spent in the jungle, except it was quiet, save for Darry's snores.

Craning his neck a little, he breathed in and out slowly. _Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale._ He concentrated on the sound of his older brother sleeping, finding it oddly comforting. It was the only thing that reminded him that he was home, that he was _safe_.

He almost laughed bitterly as he sat up, running a calloused hand through his matted hair. Nothing was safe, nothing in the world was safe, especially him, and the thoughts that plagued his mind in the stillness of the night were only a severe reminder of that.

The night he had returned home, he had known that, the two inches that separated his fingers from squeezing the life from his kid brother was only another reminder.

He couldn't bring himself to look at his brothers straight after that. Ponyboy would only look at him with a worried expression, and Soda wondered if the kid had somehow known. Darry would watch him, but his eyes only hinted at concern. What they didn't know was that Soda looked at himself like that every day in the mirror.

His hair, which had grown out quite long, had faint strays of white bordering his hairline caused by the fear he had become both friends and enemies with while he was away. His eyes, which were once brown and lively, often dancing, were dull and alert. His face had thinned immensely, but it was hardly noticeable with the heavy, grown-in beard that hid the majority of it.

It was hard to believe he was only twenty-one, that he would turn twenty-two in a few short weeks. He sure didn't feel young—he had seen too much, felt too much, heard too much. The sounds, those godforsaken sounds that he could somehow still hear, made his ears want to bleed. He could still smell gunpowder, could still hear the shots being fired, could still see matted blood on fallen carcasses, he could—

With a strangled cry, Soda shuffled out of his bedroom and headed for the bathroom, turning the tap on and splashing some cool water against his face. When he looked up, catching his breath, he stared back at his reflection, glassy, bloodshot eyes mirroring back the boy he used to be. This person, this _thing_ in front of him, looking back at him, wasn't him. Or was it?

It took two seconds before he felt the sting of the pieces shattering against his fists, before he heard the sound of glass falling and breaking against the counter and smashing upon the floor. It wasn't safe, nothing was safe, especially him, and he had to get away, had to stop this before it was too late.

"Soda?"

Two heartbeats, two breaths.

 _Inhale, exhale._

Ponyboy stood by the door, eyes wide and full of fear. He should be afraid, though, terrified even. He should resent him, Soda thought, because he wasn't Soda anymore—he was something else entirely.

"Soda?" he called again, softer that time. "Are you alright?"

A moment past, but it felt like an eternity. Darry appeared in his vision next, one hand coming up to rest on his shoulder, blue eyes piercing into his own. His mouth was moving, but Soda couldn't hear what he was saying.

But then, as if he'd been stuck under water and was resurfacing, Darry's voice pulled him back into reality, two hands against his face as their eyes became level.

"It's okay, Pepsi-Cola. We're safe," he said firmly, and not once did his gaze falter. "We're safe."

 _But I'm not._


End file.
